Brother, I Betray You
by nanirain
Summary: 17 years ago Sirius Black is told that He Who Must Not be Named is finally gone. It should have been the happiest moment of his life. But a few words is all it takes to make Sirius realize that he has ruined everything.[James' death]Betrayer.Murderer.


**Brother, I Betray You**

When he hears the pounding on his door in the middle of the night, he has to quell the urge to kill whoever's on the other side of the door. Stumbling from his desk – the place where he had fallen asleep only hours ago - and tousling his thick black hair, he moves to the door and opens it, embracing the chill of the dark, a streetlamp the only source of light. He finds himself squinting into the face of a man he does not know.

"Have you heard the news!" the man shouts in his face, mousy brown hair falling excitedly into wild blue eyes.

He feels his face screw up in annoyance; he has far too many important things on his mind to coddle to the gossips of the town. "The _news_?" He asks, his voice rough and gravely and annoyed from the lack of sleep. He's still wearing yesterday's clothes. "What the bloody hell _time_ is it?" He knows for a fact that they don't announce the news past seven on weekends.

The stranger ignores him, if possible the excited blue eyes have grown wider, and the stranger's hands are shaking when they rise to clutch him at his shoulders, making him want to back away and close the door in the man's face. "A boy has _lived_!"

A moment of silence while he tries to clear his mind and suddenly he hears himself speaking: "Lived?" He echoes, his voice sounding numb and distant. "What do you mean?" he asks, stepping outside onto the silver ice and closing the door. His feet are bare to the cold, but all he can feel is the urgency in the man's words, not just a gossiper, but a bearer of real news… real news that Sirius Black needs to hear.

"The Dark Lord!" The man exclaims, his eyes frighteningly joyful. "The Dark Lord finally has met an end! _He has been killed_!"

For a moment he is unable to believe, blinks his dark eyes at the man once, twice, trying to process the words into sense. And then the relief spreads through his body like a large bottle of rum on a cold winter's day. Met an end… the Dark Lord was gone. And suddenly all the problems of the world had been solved. All the people he cared and worried about were safe. He feels as if the weight of the entire crushing world has been lifted off his shoulders and now he can be free again. He feels the power of the relief.

"How?" He asks, though the boyish grin has not yet left his face. He finds he does not care the answer that will come from the man's wet, red lips, chapped from the winter's cold. Already he is making plans to call James, to tell him the news, to tell him to come out of hiding. They could live again.

"A boy _lived_!" The man exclaims, "He survived an unforgivable curse! _Even_!" The stranger jabs with a shaking finger into his face, though this time he does not mind, this time he understands. "_Even_ while his very parents themselves died not but moments before from the _same_ curse! Harry Potter! That is his name!" The stranger smiles a toothy grin. "Harry Potter is the name of the boy who _lived_!"

And just like that, Sirius Black became the loneliest man on earth.

The world crashes back down on his shoulders with a crushing force, grinding his soul into the ice of the pavement until he can't breathe. He feels as if the disaster has hit him in the chest like a freight train, almost knocking him off his own feet. He depends on the man's grip to keep him upright now. It does not take long for the news that should have been the best in the world to his ears to become the worst.

At first he feels the numb. Numb like his toes on the silver-streaked ice.

And then the pain…

Oh, God, the unbearable pain… it makes him want to die. It makes him wish that he could take their place… it makes his heart writhe with the grief of loss.

"James…" He whispers, his voice weak and broken for the first time in his life. The stranger does not hear.

And then the realization strikes him. The realization of what must have happened… Of what he had done.

"_Take Peter instead…" _He says, the memory playing like a film inside his mind, out of his control. He can see James's uncertain hazel eyes through the other side of the screen just as clearly as he sees himself put his hands on James's shoulders. "_Trust me, James, it's safer this way. Take Peter and no one will even think to ask him where you are. Take Peter, and everyone will be so busy trying to pry the news from me that they'll never go after him… _Trust me_ James."_ And James's hazel eyes are still worried with trouble even as he slowly nods. "_Alright_." He says, looking up at the camera with certainty. "_I trust you._"

'_I might as well have killed them…I might as well have_killed _him… Oh, James._'

A million memories flash through his mind in a fraction of a second. Everything is ripped away from Sirius Black with the words of the stranger. He cannot see how pale his face turns in the moonlit night…he cannot hear the neighbor's jubilee, the excited cries of triumph. He can't feel the way his neighbor shakes his body as an act of joy, fingers gripping his shoulders in brotherhood; his mind is still lost in the memory of his friend… his brother. The dead James Potter.

"A boy has _lived_!"

Deaf to the words.

"He has _lived_!"

Numb to touch.

"At last! _At last! _The Dark Lord had met and end! Thank God!"

_"Dear God… what have I done?"_ He whispers, but the stranger does not hear. They are in two different worlds now… such very different worlds.

"At last we can live without the pain!"

Lost to everything but the pain… the horrible pain. And to the fury of realizing what he knows he has done…

"Rejoice all!" The neighbor screams, the voice shrill, finally releasing him from the fingers' grip, the neighbor does not notice how he falls back and barely catches his weakened, hollow body on the stone wall. Instead the stranger shouts into the night: "For this is a new beginning!"

For Sirius Black, the man who wastaking the first, shuddering, gasping breath as he slid down the stone, it was the end. He closes his darkeyes tightly against the suffocating pain, and holds his head tightlyin his hands, his mind so lost in the turmoil of the grief…while softly he whispers.

"Brother, I betray you."

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**A/N:** I hope it came out right, I really couldn't find a way to express perfectly what I was seeing in my head. Sorry Guys. Since I _love_ Sirius there will probably be a few more oneshots of his story both before and after the night that James and Lily are murdered.

**Disclaimer: **Any recognizable material does not belong to me. Most of it belongs to JK Rowling or the Director/Makers of the Harry Potter Movies. Thank You.

_xox- nanirain_


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